SAN ANTONIO — School choice proponents gathered at Sunset Station to greet a national tour of cities Monday morning designed to energize supporters, applaud recent efforts to bring high-performing charter schools to the city and celebrate “local heroes” who have helped push the group's agenda.

The tour kicked off in Newark, N.J., last week and will culminate in San Francisco on Saturday. The rally here featured students, parents and employees from a half-dozen local charter, parochial, private and virtual schools.

“We're here because we want to celebrate the options available to parents in San Antonio and across Texas,” said National School Choice Week president Andrew Campanella. “We also want to send a message to Austin that school choice options need to be protected and even expanded.”

State Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, promised the crowd she would continue to fight to ensure those options.

“School choice is a win for parents, for teachers, for the state, and most of all, a win for every child,” she said to raucous applause.

National School Choice Week organizers have been careful to laud traditional public schools as part of an inclusive array of options that include public funding of private schools through scholarships or refundable tax credits, though they generally avoid using the term “vouchers.”

Campbell, who is seeking a second term against two Republican primary challengers, said the state's current education funding system is “too top heavy,” with too many tax dollars going to public school administration or facilities.

She recommended a “scholarship” program that would allow public funding to go to schools chosen by students and parents.

“The dollars need to follow the child,” Campbell said. “We need to make sure that parents have quality educational choices.”

The Texas Legislature has repeatedly declined to embrace private school voucher programs, though last year it significantly expanded the number of allowable charters in the state. Campbell introduced a bill last year for an “educational grant” program that parents could use to pay for private school education, which failed.

Matthew Randazzo, the president and CEO of Choose to Succeed, which has raised millions of dollars to recruit out-of-state charter school operators to apply for Texas charters and open schools in San Antonio, praised local school districts that offer magnet schools among their programs. He was educated in traditional public schools, he noted.